Lafayette man perfected bread-making skills in Iceland

David Hoekman watches a digital scale as he pours his sourdough wheat bread starter into a bowl on Jan. 16 at his home in Lafayette.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

Hearty sourdough wheat bread

Ingredients

150 grams starter

350 grams water

10 grams of salt

4 grams dry yeast

50 grams "goodies" -- assorted whole grains including flax seed, millet, wheat berries (softened in water for a few days or boiled for 30 minutes) and 9-grain cereal

150 grams whole wheat flour

350 grams white flour

Directions:

First, place a large bowl on the scale and tare (zero) the scale. Then, add the starter and water and combine. (If starter is very thick, use a little less starter and a little more water during this step.) Add the salt and the yeast next, and stir to make sure both get thoroughly incorporated in the batch. Mix in the goodies of your choice and tare (zero) the scale before measuring the whole wheat and white flour. (Bakers may go half-and-half with the whole wheat and white flour, but the bread will not rise as well.) With a spoon, mix the flour into the batch, but do not knead.

Next, cover the bowl with a towel and let the bread rise at room temperature overnight. Note that if the bread is left to sit in a spot warmer than room temperature, it may rise in about 4 hours.

After the dough doubles in size, remove it from the bowl and shape the loaf on a lightly floured surface. Again, no kneading is required. Then, place the shaped loaf on a 13-inch-by-17-inch sheet of parchment paper or reusable parchment paper. Cover it with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for about 30 minutes at room temperature.

Meanwhile, put a 3- to 6-quart cast iron pot with a lid on the middle rack of the oven. Then, preheat the oven to 450 degrees for at least 20 minutes to heat the pot and lid thoroughly.

The dough is ready when it bounces back from being pressed with your finger. Remove the plastic wrap and lightly score five lines on the top with a knife so the bread surface will split evenly as it bakes. Then, pull the rack halfway out of the oven, pull of the pot's lid, drop parchment paper cradling the dough in the pot. Quickly cover it with the lid and bake at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. Then, take off the lid and bake at 350 degrees for another 15 to 20 minutes. (The longer you leave it in during the second baking stage, the drier it gets, which makes for a crustier bread.)

Starter:

1½ cups milk or water

1½ cups flour

Directions:

Mix one part milk or water to one part flour in a quart jar. Leave jar uncovered at room temperature for a day. Pour off the liquid that sits on top as the flour settles before mixing, covering and refrigerating it.

Every time you feed the starter with another one-to-one ratio of water and flour, pour off the liquid that collects at the top as the flour settles. Note that taking from the starter and replenishing it keeps it fresh and smelling as it should -- sour. But the starter may keep well for a week between uses if refrigerated.

Source: David Hoekman

LAFAYETTE -- David Hoekman spent four summers living in Iceland to conduct environmental research between 2008 and 2011 and, incidentally, also learned more about making good bread there and anywhere in the world.

A sourdough wheat bread loaf made by David Hoekman is seen.
(
Matthew Jonas
)

But when Hoekman, 32, and his family moved to Lafayette seven months ago, his experience baking bread daily for his research team when they lived near the Arctic Circle paid off.

"It took several tries to get it right here, for sure. It was the same in Iceland. But it's about the moisture in the air, really," he said.

In Iceland, Hoekman filled a can with water and placed it underneath the rack before preheating the oven to 450 degrees. Then, to let the uncovered bread dough get as much of that wet heat as possible, he became part acrobat.

"It was a high oven that we used in Iceland, and it was 'Open! Swoosh! Close!'" he said of sliding the filled bread pan into place. "I always wished I could do that step faster.

"Water transfers heat faster," he continued. "And so, in the first minute and a half, you'd get a crust started that you'd never get in a dry oven."

Now, Hoekman bakes bread in a 4-quart Dutch oven -- a cast iron pot with a lid -- that his wife picked up at a thrift store for $27.

Though similar Dutch ovens can retail for a little and a lot more, depending on the brand and special features -- such as a porcelain-coated interior for easier cleanup -- it evenly distributes heat and traps moisture between dough and lid well enough to be worth the expense.

The crust develops nicely in that small, moist headspace without requiring the same swiftness between countertop and oven as the hot oven with the can of water did.

Besides understanding how moisture can make or break a great bread crust -- and how the water-to-flour ratio is what most influences crumb moisture, too -- Hoekman also came to appreciate using a dough starter.

A starter is a split ratio of water or milk to flour that ferments in a jar and adds to the sponginess of the dough.

"There's a microbial colony growing in that starter jar, and that is what helps the bread get all those bubbles," he said.

Finally, after trying lots of bread recipes that called for cups of this or that ingredient, Hoekman followed the lead of his post-doc adviser at the time: He retired his measuring cups and got a digital scale to weigh ingredients precisely to the gram.

That step concludes his techniques for making a hearty bread perfect when spread with butter and served with a steaming bowl of winter's soup or stew.

Plus, the basic recipe he uses allows for lots of variety. He adds flax seed, millet, wheat berries, nine-grain cereal or a combination thereof. Those ingredients then sit inert in the matrix of the dough to add flavor, color and texture.

But the best part of his bread recipe is that requires no kneading.

"Our summers in Iceland are busy. We've got lots of field work. It's not like I had these laid-back days to make bread," he said. " ... So, while I do like the feel of kneading bread, I really like the no-knead part. This recipe is definitely quicker."

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